Even though we have entered the space age, homes made of wood are still extremely popular. As part of the DIY (do-it-yourself) "fad", a popular part time occupation has become building one's own house, either from commercially available building materials, or from logs of wood. A special problem exists in that in any wooden structure, corners and joints are the most critical parts of integrity of the structure. A loosely joined joint can allow significant leaks of air and water to enter a house with the resulting increase in cost of maintenance and decrease in desirability of living conditions. The quality of construction of corners and joints largely depends upon the skill and experience of the builder constructing these joints. Thus, the average do-it-yourselfer attempting to build a house does not have sufficient experience and skill to expertly craft the energy-efficient and structurally sound house of one's dreams.
Added to this complication is the fact that in log homes typically large timbers are used in the construction. The precise maneuvering of these large timbers can be accomplished, if at all, only with a great amount of difficulty. Thus, even the most experienced carpenter will have problems in constructing a uniformly tight joint. This has resulted in the prior art in the quality of corners and joints being non-uniform.
This invention provides a solution to this problem on any structure made of a wooden type material. This wooden type material can be wood or any other porous type substance which can be nailed into in order to obtain holding power. Although the invention is described with reference to log homes, it is also equally applicable to post and beam structures, frame houses, barns and other building, boats, ships, barges, dams, docks, floors, etc. Any structure made of a wooden type material requires tight joints, and the present invention provides a structure which enables tight joints in an advantageous way.
There have been proposed solutions to this problem in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 3,152,787 attempts to provide one such solution. This patent teaches a conventional electric motor coupled to a plate which has curved spikes thereon. When this electric motor is turned on, the plate including the curved spikes can be moved closer to this electric motor. Thus, by driving the spikes into a floor board and operating this electric motor, the floor boards can be moved up against one another. However, there are many problems in this prior art. A first problem is that using an electric motor, precise control of the device is not possible. In addition, referring to FIG. 6 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,152,787, it can be seen that these spikes are located at angles in opposing directions. Thus, a difficulty in both inserting this device into the floor board, and removing this device from the floor board after use would be encountered. In addition, the other end of the device taught by the '787 patent is an angle iron 10 which must be abutted against a three-dimensional corner. Therefore, this device would be useless on a totally flat surface with no corners.
Another proposed solution from the year 1902 can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 701,169. This patent teaches a similar device to that taught by '787--that is a floor jack with a spike on one end for contacting the floor. The '169 patent uses a rack and pinion type ratcheting mechanism to move the spike--thus moving the board into which the spike has been affixed.
However, what has been missing from the art is a relatively simple tightening and clamping device which can be used to move heavy loads such as will exist in building a log cabin--and yet is relatively simple and inexpensive to make, and can be easily used by a non-professional.